March 24, 2019 by CA Chaparral Institute Governor Newsom’s Executive Order to waive environmental protection laws for a large number of Cal Fire’s habitat clearance and logging operations ignores science, dismisses the lessons of the 2017 and 2018 wildfires, and is following the pattern President Trump has established – if facts get in the way […]
Read MoreCategory: Environmental Impacts
A massive aquifer lies beneath the Mojave Desert. Could it help solve California’s water problem?
“Cadiz hopes to pump 16.3 billion gallons of water from the desert each year, equivalent to 50,000 acre-feet. A required environmental assessment, paid for by the company, found that 32,000 acre-feet of water would naturally recharge the aquifer each year, an 18,000-acre-foot annual deficit that Cadiz acknowledges would last for the project’s 50-year life. The assessment […]
Read MoreThe future of the Clean Water Rule is in our hands
The EPA wants to reduce protections for headwater streams. Stand up for clean water today! Whether you fish or just simply understand the value of clean water, there is no law more important than the Clean Water Act. In 2015, the EPA developed a rule that affirmed Clean Water Act protections for “intermittent and ephemeral […]
Read MorePacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations Leads Suit Against State Water Board to Protect Salmon in the Water Quality Control Plan
January 28, 2019 Maven Breaking News From the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA): On Friday, Jan. 25, 2019, a coalition of environmental, fishing, and Native American groups led by the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA) filed suit against the State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board). Plaintiffs demand that the […]
Read MoreThe Insect Apocalypse is Here
What does it mean for the rest of life on Earth? (Excerpt from New York Times Magazine)Brooke Jarvis, November 27, 2018 In 2013, Krefeld entomologists confirmed that the total number of insects caught in one nature reserve was nearly 80 percent lower than the same spot in 1989. They had sampled other sites, analyzed old […]
Read MoreClear-Cutting Forests
There is a clear-cut connection between healthy forests and that of water quantity, water quality, and climate that our society and wildlife depend. This has been true even before the realization that Global Warming/Climate Change Impacts should have stopped this practice in its tracks. The value of forests to all of the above supercede the value […]
Read MoreDrug pollution concentrates in stream bugs, passes to predators in water and on land
November 6, 2018, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies Sixty-nine pharmaceutical compounds have been detected in stream insects, some at concentrations that may threaten animals that feed on them, such as trout and platypus. When these insects emerge as flying adults, they can pass drugs to spiders, birds, bats, and other streamside foragers. These findings by an […]
Read MoreCalifornia Court Finds Public Trust Doctrine Applies to State Groundwater Resources
Court Rejects Claim That SGMA “Displaces” Public Trust’s Application to California Groundwater The California Court of Appeal for the Third Appellate District has issued an important decision declaring that California’s powerful public trust doctrine applies to at least some of the state’s overtaxed groundwater resources. The court’s opinion also rejects the argument that California’s Sustainable […]
Read MoreLegal Battle Staves Off Trump’s Assault on Clean Water Protections
By Michelle Chen, TruthoutPublished September 12, 2018 Since taking office, Donald Trump has waged a relentless attack on the nation’s waterways, but his efforts to strip away protections for rivers and wetlands have run into a tide of legal resistance. One of Trump’s first environmental policy directives was to choke off the foundational law protecting water bodies […]
Read MoreCalifornia Court Finds Public Trust Doctrine Applies to State Groundwater Resources
Court Rejects Claim That SGMA “Displaces” Public Trust’s Application to California Groundwater RICHARD FRANK, August 29, 2018 The California Court of Appeal for the Third Appellate District has issued an important decision declaring that California’s powerful public trust doctrine applies to at least some of the state’s overtaxed groundwater resources. The court’s opinion also rejects […]
Read MoreMark West Creek Study (Sonoma County)
Mark West Creek is one of five priority stream systems selected as part of the 2014 California Water Action Plan effort. The 59 square mile Mark West Creek HUC12 subwatershed, located within Sonoma County, is the second largest subwatershed in the Russian River basin. The creek supports several listed anadromous salmonid species including California Coastal […]
Read MorePetition to Sign: Declare Climate Change Major Disaster
Declare Climate Change a Major Disaster before it’s too late https://www.change.org/p/california-governor-declare-climate-change-a-major-disaster-before-it-s-too-late Jorge Rebagliati started this petition to California Governor Despite Climate Change having been identified by scientists, leaders, analysts and people from all over the world as “the greatest threat to humanity and life on Earth”, actions taken to address it have been few in […]
Read MoreAll of state’s salt marshes are at risk of vanishing.
By Rosanna Xia Natural protectors are threatened along coast. Blame rising seas and humans, study says. Hundreds of species would be threatened; floods would worsen. On one side, there’s the rising ocean. On the other, rising buildings. Squeezed between the two are California’s salt marshes, a unique ecosystem filled with pickleweed and cordgrass, shorebirds and […]
Read MoreLand use strategies to mitigate climate change in carbon dense temperate forests
Beverly E. Law, Tara W. Hudiburg, Logan T. Berner, Jeffrey J. Kent, Polly C. Buotte and Mark E. Harmon PNAS March 19, 2018. 201720064; published ahead of print March 19, 2018. Edited by William H. Schlesinger, Duke University, Durham, NC, and approved January 22, 2018 (received for review November 16, 2017) Significance Regional quantification of […]
Read MoreForest ‘Restoration’ Rule is Ruse to Increase Logging
By Chad T. Hanson January 31, 2018 The U.S. Forest Service recently proposed a sweeping effort to identify aspects of environmental analysis and public participation to be “reduced” or “eliminated” regarding commercial logging projects in our national forests. The Trump administration is attempting to spin this as an effort to promote “increased efficiency” for the […]
Read MoreTwo dams would suck the water bond dry
By Jacques Leslie (from LA Times Opinion Page, April 2018) Spurned dam projects are called vampires because they so often rise from the dead. The term perfectly fits two hoary, misguided proposals under consideration in California as a result of passage of Proposition 1, the 2014 bond measure that set aside $2.7 billion for new […]
Read MoreCalifornia’s fishing industry is drying up. We need to think big on climate change
By Brian Hines Special to The Sacramento Bee March 28, 2018 When I was ten, I taught myself how to fish in California’s redwood-lined Russian River, once a world-renowned wild steelhead rainbow trout sport fishery. Today, as a veteran trout and salmon sport angler I see how climate change threatens our wild trout and salmon […]
Read MoreCalifornia is dammed enough
L.A. Times Editorial: Environmental consequences aside, it would seem to make a certain amount of sense to dam a river in order to store and distribute water where and when it is most needed. But what if there’s no river? Or more to the point, what if every river that can be dammed already has […]
Read MoreState can Label Widely used Herbicide as Possible Carcinogen
By Bob Egelko April 19, 2018 A state appeals court on Thursday backed California’s listing of the widely used herbicide glyphosate as a possible cause of cancer and the state’s prohibition against discharging it into public waterways. The chemical is the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer, popular with farmers as well as homeowners. Citing […]
Read MoreThe Invisible Poisons: Where are They?
To All, Here is one of those serious issues that has not been adequately addressed due to the power of money in politics as well as being an invisible threat. It is past time that the issue of pesticides gets exposed, creates public outrage and forces the invisible poisons into containment. What’s on those vines? […]
Read MoreAreas Of Conservation Emphasis (ACE) Version 3: A California Department Of Fish And Wildlife Conservation Analysis Tool
PRESENTED BY MELANIE GOGOL-PROKURAT: The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) Areas of Conservation Emphasis (ACE) project is a non-regulatory tool that brings together the best available map-based data in California to depict biodiversity, significant habitats, connectivity, climate change resilience, and other datasets for use in conservation planning. ACE compiles and analyzes information from […]
Read MoreHelp Stop Pesticide Contamination in Smith River Estuary
By Greg King, Siskiyou Land Conservancy After many years the California North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board has finally released a long awaited report that provides new and devastating data from the Smith River estuary: From 2013-15 state scientists found 17 highly toxic pesticides in surface waters of the lower Smith River. They also found at […]
Read MoreAll of state’s salt marshes are at risk of vanishing. Natural Protectors are threatened along coast. Blame rising seas and humans, study says. Hundreds of species would be threatened; floods would worsen.
By Rosanna Xia On one side, there’s the rising ocean. On the other, rising buildings. Squeezed between the two are California’s salt marshes, a unique ecosystem filled with pickleweed and cordgrass, shorebirds and many endangered species. Coastal wetlands such as Bolinas Lagoon in Marin County, the marshes along Morro Bay and the ecological preserve in Newport […]
Read MoreTo address climate change, stop clear-cutting
By Shannon Wilson For The Register-Guard Feb. 25, 2018 Although the Clean Energy Jobs bill’s alleged aim is the reduction of Oregon’s carbon emissions, it amazingly ignores the state’s largest emitter: industrial clear-cut logging on millions of acres of our forest lands. The Center for Sustainable Economy declared in its 2017 “Oregon Forest Carbon” report […]
Read MoreCalifornia Court Ruling Ends Decades of State Pesticide Spraying
Judge Strips State Food Agriculture Agency of Authority to Use Chemicals SACRAMENTO, Calif – A judge has ordered the California Department of Food and Agriculture to stop using chemical pesticides in its statewide program until the agency complies with state environmental laws. The injunction, issued late last week, is a sweeping victory for 11 public-health, conservation, citizen and food-safety groups and the city […]
Read MoreAction to Help Pesticide Contamination in the Smith River
Help Stop Pesticide Contamination in Smith River Estuary By Greg King, Siskiyou Land Conservancy After many years the California North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board has finally released a long awaited report that provides new and devastating data from the Smith River estuary: From 2013-15 state scientists found 17 highly toxic pesticides in surface […]
Read MoreDiverted River Sustains California Wine Country, but It’s Killing Salmon
Utility PG&E’s Potter Valley Project includes two dams on the Eel River that are up for relicensing. Water diversions into the Russian River for power generation are in jeopardy as salmon and steelhead remain at risk of extinction. Written by Matt Weiser Published on Jan. 29, 2018 Read time Approx. 6 minutes Few people outside Northern California have heard of the […]
Read MoreThis is a tale of two watersheds: One that invests and protects its watersheds and one that sacrifices its watersheds to one crop producing non-foods.
Napa Valley tree-removal ballot proposal brings wine business, environmentalist clash CYNTHIA SWEENEY NORTH BAY BUSINESS JOURNAL | January 29, 2018, 9:29AM As new vineyards spread from the crowded Napa Valley floor to the hillsides, environmentalists have succeeded in getting enough votes to qualify for the June 5 ballot that aims to protect the county’s watershed and oak […]
Read MoreCalifornia needs smart solutions to dead trees
By Daniel Barad Special to The Bee January 17, 2018 Last month the U.S. Forest Service released astonishing estimates that the number of trees killed by drought and pine beetles in California has risen to 129 million in the past five years. Rather than respond in a way driven by science, ecological values and common […]
Read MoreBig Unknowns: What Legal Marijuana Means for Water in Western States
Six western states now allow recreational use of marijuana, creating a huge new legal market for cannabis farmers. But the implications for water supplies remain a big unknown. “It looks like a mess right now,” one expert says. Written by Matt Weiser Published on Jan. 3, 2018 Read time Approx. 10 minutes States throughout the West have rushed to legalize […]
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